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Over at the official team blog of the Royals, Nick Kappel runs through Jorge Soler’s history, from his defection from Cuba in 2011 through his record-breaking 2019 season.
After the injury healed, Soler rejoined [private hitting coach Mike] Tosar in Miami last offseason. He wanted to continue refining his approach under the tutelage of Tosar and his relentless style.
They would meet four to five times a week, but only after Soler would run or lift weights. Tosar pushed Soler to refine his mental approach, and inside the cages, Soler worked to better identify sliders, a pitch that plagued him in previous years.
At Kings of Kauffman, Michael Huckins took a look at some Cleveland free agents the Royals might want to check out for next season:
Yasiel Puig is never going to become the MVP that many thought he would when he first came into the league as a 22-year-old Los Angeles Dodger. But, somehow, Puig has gone from being overrated as a kid in this league to being underrated as he enters his prime years. Puig can play reasonable defense in the corner outfield spots. He hit 24 homers last season. He gets on base against both righties and lefties but does have some pronounced reverse splits in power hitting for his career.
His slugging percentage is 76 points higher against right-handed pitchers. That could pair nicely with Hunter Dozier in our lineup.
Also at KoK, Jordan Foote ran the same thought exercise with St. Louis free agents, but passes on all except for “potentially” Michael Wacha:
Wacha came back down to earth in 2019. Tossing just 126.2 innings, an ERA of 4.76 is less than impressive, to say the least. His FIP (5.61) indicates that things could have been even worse. Wacha experienced some shoulder tightness late in the regular season, causing him to miss St. Louis’ playoff run. At 28, Wacha is facing a critical point in his career. Perhaps Dayton Moore will want to take a chance on him as a middle-of-the-rotation arm.
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The ugly saga of the Astros’ assistant GM who decided 1) it was a good idea to antagonize a group of female reporters about the team’s acquisition of Roberto Osuna, and 2) a good time to do this was during the celebration of Houston’s pennant which they won in spite of Osuna giving up a 9th-inning home run, is going to hang an ugly pall over the World Series.
Frankly, the Astros’ response to the incident is weak garbage, and needlessly antagonistic toward the media members who corroborated the story. Of course the team’s PR person/people had nothing to do with signing Osuna in the first place, but how hard is it to say, “that is a disturbing allegation and we will look into it”?
Maybe you just want to watch baseball, and not think about all that baggage. That would be fair, in a vacuum, but none of us exist in a vacuum and neither does baseball. To anyone who has been affected by domestic violence, watching known abusers continue to be ushered out onto the biggest stage in the game means baseball can’t be an escape from day-to-day life. Please consider that if you haven’t before.
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Deadspin posted some funny glitches from WWE 2k20.
In hockey news, Colorado Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen suffers a gross leg injury.
Though there were some comments about the latest Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer in yesterday’s Rumblings, it was not an official topic. Let us change that now.
Music for today.